Thursday, September 22, 2011

Death: A Newfound Perspective

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, we view the events and tragedies surrounding Nazi Germany through the eyes of an unexpected narrator-death. We as the reader learn of death’s moral’s he carries with him each day and of the perspective from which he views the world and the events therein. We get a sense of an unpredicted personality from Death himself and our opinions on death are ultimately changed. Death brings to the table a new take on the tragedies experienced by many in Nazi Germany and is unsupportive of the chaos and heartbreak Hitler’s army is creating in Europe. The narrator is a witty, thoughtful, and moral character throughout the book.
            Death carries with himself on a daily basis burdens, desires, and most importantly his personal moral compass. Death’s moral compass, surprisingly to the reader, consists of a few things that a normal, loving human would consider their moral compass-empathy, observation, peace, and admiration. Death feels for the victims of Hitler’s reign and takes their side, while at the same time ‘working’ for him in collecting the souls of those of which have had their lives stolen by evil. Death also values observation as he watches closely everything that goes on throughout the war, collecting the many unlucky souls, while leaving side notes for the reader throughout the novel. In the introductory chapter the narrator cuts away from the text and inserts a side note. It states: “*** AN OBSERVATION *** A pair of train guards. A pair of grave diggers.” (22). Death is one to take note of his surroundings and analyze them, giving the reader an alternative perspective to the characters in the story, as almost an act of dramatic irony. Death is also, unexpectedly by most, opposed to the termination of life. This may sound unreasonable but death almost resents himself, however, collecting the souls of the lost is simply his occupation and it is necessary for him to do so. This doesn’t mean he enjoys it or takes pride in his job. Lastly, Death admires the living, thriving people of the world and regrets taking their privileges and happiness away from them. He admires the people who work hard and stay strong throughout such extreme times, never giving up on life or giving into well, him. He shares the same views as many, however they do not realize it, associating him with evil and mistaking him with negativity.
            With Death as the main focus and narrator of a story of courage, knowledge, and tragedy, Markus Zusak demonstrates a newfound perspective on life and death themselves. Through strong personification of the one thing humans fear most, the reader’s perspective on death is altered to sympathy and understanding of Death himself. Death is simply a caring being, who carries with him a moral compass of which would unexpectedly be associated with someone of his caliber.

4 comments:

  1. Sydney, I like how you chose to focus on death when writing this. I too found it interesting that this book was narrated from Death's point of view. I also noticed as you did that Death often observes situations and in doing this gives himself a humanistic side. However, I would have liked to see you challenge more questions of what is right and wrong and look at these questions through Death's perspective. For example when death is in Stalingrad he looks around and doesn't understand the blood shed, he states "I am haunted by humans.". What do you think?

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  2. Great post Sydney! I like how you described the narrator and it was interesting how he thrived over the living. My question to you is do you think Death actually liked his job or do you think he would rather be a part of the living?

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  3. Sydney, strong blog post! You have great points with quotes to back them up! Be careful with your grammar and I would suggest using better word choice to make your points more powerful. Your characters seem very interesting, and The Book Thief sounds like a great read! I am a little confused as to who you are exactly talking about, are your morals based on a character, or the book itself? Also, which character would you say mainly showed morality or immorality?

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  4. "Through strong personification of the one thing humans fear most, the reader’s perspective on death is altered to sympathy and understanding of Death himself." Wow, so true! It was very weird to be reading and seeing everything from Death's point of view and thinking of Death as a real person almost. Crazy to think about but great point! What if that was real and Death was an actual thinking being? You never know!

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